June 2016: Blog Net Income Report

If you want to replicate the income results you see below, then why wait? Sign up with Blue Host to start your very own site today! I even have a tutorial on my site on How to Start a Blog in 4 easy steps that take all of 15 minutes to complete.

I have been watching many people around the blogosphere disclose their monthly online income, and quite honestly, I thought it would be a good idea to do the same. I am not disclosing any income from my day job as a Corporate Finance Manager. Instead, this will serve as a marker for the additional earnings I achieve as a result of my online endeavors and various side gigs.

Please understand that I am not disclosing this to make anyone jealous, only to serve as a very visual and tangible reminder that any of you reading this can achieve the same results…probably better even!

Category Explanations:

Advertising Sales: These are direct advertisements from various media companies. I have several sites which I own and have sectioned off that amount that I earn from those. I also place ads for clients of mine as well. These are other bloggers that I find advertising for, in which I keep a small percentage of the earnings for myself.

AdSense/Clickable Ads: These are the earnings I get from all of those banners you see spread throughout sites…they could be on the sidebar or even within the article itself. I actually keep the ads hidden and the only people that see them are the ones that find me through a search engine like Google or Yahoo. This way my more loyal readers aren’t bothered by the additional clutter and noise. This is an area I am always looking to increase.

Affiliate Earnings: These are the earnings you receive from selling other peoples (or your own) products on your website. Think of major players like Amazon Affiliates. If you put up their affiliate links people can buy items from Amazon from your site directly, which in turn earns you a portion of that revenue.

Misc Earnings: There will be always miscellaneous ways of earning income and racking up expenses! This misc. buckets is a collection of many items, some are recurring while others are one-off items. I might write an article for a major site and get paid $50 to do so. Or perhaps I help someone with organic link building. I also offer some minimal paid services for blog coaching and helping others start blogs…this earns me some additional income, but I haven’t widely publicized and advertised it to really grow that part of the business yet.

Summary and Conclusion

This month income went down a few thousand versus last month, but since I’m consistently hitting $20k+ each month I really can’t complain! I also spent $1,500 on some miscellaneous services like building out my Pinterest account. I hired a great service that seems to already be paying off in terms of Pinterest traffic. Stay tuned for updates on all of that, and what seems to be a stronger earnings month in July.

Also, don’t forget, I am putting the money to good use, maxing out all retirement accounts available to me, including an SEP IRA. I also purchased my first rental property a couple months ago and just recently purchased another rental property in a state known for vacation rentals…so I will let you know more about that in a future post. Rental property is all part of my continuing efforts to diversify my income and minimize my risks.

Many of you may have read my journey of increasing my net worth $400,000 in just 4 years that I shared awhile back. I’ve been asking each month in these income reports if any of you would be interested in seeing a monthly net worth update as well. Well, if you were paying attention, I finally published my first net worth update for June, and will continue doing so for the foreseeable future.

If you are interested in earning online income, and making $200,000 blogging, trust me it can be done! I’m telling you, the internet has opened up possibilities that used to be non-existent. If I can start a website and earn money, then literally everyone else in the world can too! You just need to have a little patience, and a little persistence. If you’re inspired, I included a banner below for BlueHost, this was the Hosting company that I started with as well. They help you setup your site for free, and are one of the cheapest and more reliable hosting companies in the game!

Comments

Thank you for sharing! It’s so interesting to see how different bloggers have different monetization systems. Your report is the first one I see with such a large chunk of revenue coming from direct ad sales.
I’m embarking on my own blogging journey these days and posted my first traffic and revenue report (still in the red, of course). I also document every stage of the process. I hope it works out too.